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white man's burden
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noun
the alleged duty of white colonizers to care for nonwhite Indigenous subjects in their colonial possessions.
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Origin of white man's burden
After a poem of the same title by Rudyard Kipling (1899)
Words nearby white man's burden
white lung, whitely, white magic, white mahogany, Whiteman, white man's burden, white Mariposa, white market, white marlin, white matter, white meat
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
How to use white man's burden in a sentence
British Dictionary definitions for white man's burden
White man's burden
noun
the supposed duty of the White race to bring education and Western culture to the non-White inhabitants of their colonies
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
Cultural definitions for white man's burden
white man's burden
A phrase used to justify European imperialism in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries; it is the title of a poem by Rudyard Kipling. The phrase implies that imperialism was motivated by a high-minded desire of whites to uplift people of color.
The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition
Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.